Wish you were here? Using automated emails to trigger memories and bookings in the travel industry

We’re used to automated emails from the travel industry – from ticket confirmations, itineraries and reminders for forthcoming trips. On the face of it, it seems like most big travel brands have got it sorted.

But there’s one big gap in many travel companies’ customer journeys. One timely reminder that could spark re-engagement and bookings in an instant, and it’s already staring us in the face – it’s the anniversary.

We’re not talking about wedding anniversaries or even annual celebrations of becoming a member or customer – we’re talking about reminiscing that this time last year you were enjoying the sun, sitting on a beach in a far away country.

On this day…

Most of us are pretty familiar with these timely reminders on social media platforms – when Facebook shares a memory of a far-flung location, with you sitting there looking tanned and relaxed, but many travel brands fail to utilise a similar tactic on email.

And it really is a missed opportunity because the functionality is there and prompting these memories makes customers sit-up and think about booking a holiday again.

After all, annual reminders always mean reviewing the year gone by and they force us to contemplate the future – all you have to do is initiate the conversation. And a timely email with a call-to-action which will be reinforced by memories popping-up on social media will prompt your customers to re-engage with your brand.

For many travel brands these timely reminders of holidays gone by are definitely underutilized – especially on email.

Share their memories

And it’s such a shame because sharing memories is so easy to do and so nice to receive. Using tools such as PureTargeting you can look-up travellers’ previous bookings and send an automated, personalised email alerting them to the fact that they were somewhere completely different this time last year. Just remember to exclude customers who weren’t satisfied with their experience and edit your marketing appropriately.

You can really get creative, sending a ‘wish you were here’ style postcard featuring an image of the destination or resort and a link to rebook. You can even pull in social media updates, weather reports, news and reviews of where they stayed to make memories come to life.

And why not invite them to recreate their experience again in the inbox with a cheeky link to a local cocktail recipe or a webcam for the beach or destination they visited.

If they tell you they can’t get away again then follow-up the email with suggestions for similar resorts and destinations or crowd-sourced recommendations for holidays on a different budget. Using our behaviour targeting software you can look at what they then browsed and send them updates and availability on what they’ve looked at with a prompt to book.

Anniversary emails

Anniversary emails such as these are lovely examples of re-engagement campaigns that can easily be managed through PureTargeting. Creating automated reminders makes memories come flooding back and prompt customers to stop, think and rebook.

So if you want to re-engage previous bookers then maybe it’s time to remind them what they’re missing. And with the anniversary of many people’s summer locations coming-up, now is the best time to start – trigger a timely automated reminder and make it possible for them to be there once again…